from Christopher L. Gasper of the Boston Globe,

The Bruins are stuck in the neutral zone right now, frozen between the team they used to be and the team they want to be. They’re in pucks purgatory, and it isn’t fun....

So far the Boston hockey reboot has failed to find the on switch and so the Bruins are off to their first 0-3 start since 1999. It’s only three games, far too small a sample size to condemn coach Claude Julien and the Black and Gold for the season. But you can practically see the Spoked-B spinning in place as the Bruins try to integrate new personnel and take a new approach for the go-go NHL under their old bench boss.

Change hasn’t been good for the Bruins.

When new general manager Don Sweeney trumpeted a more offensive look for the Bruins after missing the playoffs for the first time since 2007, this isn’t the use of the word he had in mind. Instead of a reboot, the Bruins were booed off the ice by the Spoked-Believers following a 6-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in a Monday matinee at TD Garden.

The Bruins played a very unfamiliar brand of hockey for those who have watched them smother opponents and swaddle their own zone in defensive layers during Julien’s nine-year tenure. Monday, there were giveaways, soft goals, ill-advised penalties and even-strength ineffectiveness, all of which negated three power-play goals.

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